Back to "Tales" Contents Back to Home
	T H E    T A R N    J E W E L
	Once upon a time there was a sweet mansion at the bottom of a tarn somewhere in the North - unless it was a bonny loch in the Highlands. Unfortunately, misery was the lot of the lady of the manor for so many years ! Once her dear wee lassie was out for a walk but she never came back home, no one could ever know more about her, but people was convinced that the wee lassie had been snatched by beings from the land. The lady was inconsolable, year after year. So a fairy girl decided to help her. When the lady was expecting another son, the fairy intervened and gave him a cryptic escutcheon as birth gift ; this escutcheon was meant to lead the young man to the wee lassie and so to bring peace and joy in the lady's heart. When the boy had grown enough, he left the mansion and the tarn to search the wee lassie. Thanks to the escutcheon, he knew day after day where he had to move. It took a very long time, he saw many and many unknown things, and one morning, a voice inside of him told him that he had arrived at the right place. A sweet house was standing just in front of him. Garlic, thyme and rosemary scent but also laughter and joy reached him from the window. He approached and saw a pretty lanky woman, cooking for her joyful children. Happiness was glowing all around them. And the young man began to think. He was persuaded that he had to bring the wee lassie back to the mansion at the bottom of the tarn, he always thought that it was the only thing that would make his mother's sadness fly away. But in front of so much happiness in this house, doubt overcame his mind. First, the wee lassie had turned into a women, with children ; and she seemed really happy in this house, how could she prefer to return inside the tarn ? The young man introduced himself, the woman smiled at him, she was really shining, happiness was radiating all around her. She said she hadn't forgotten her mother nor the world in the tarn, but she had not the slightest ability to give news to her parents. The young man promised to give news from her to her mother, and to relate how much she was happy there. Before the man moved back, the pretty woman left the kitchen and came back with a small box ; she said that when she was the wee lassie in the tarn, she had had a rummage into a forbidden cupboard and had found this box, she went out for a walk with this box inside her pocket, then a man took her for a very long journey and she didn't remember what happened afterwards ; she had opened the box only once, just before the man snatched her, then she didn't know where the box was, but a few weeks before, fate made her find it by mere chance. She gave him the box but advised him not to open it till he wouldn't be moved far away from her. The young man waited a few days before opening the box, he had travelled in several regions and the landscape appeared so much different from the one with the garlic and rosemary scents, that he thought that time was come to know the secret of this box. When he opened the box, the light which shined from it was so intense that he closed his eyes during a short moment. When he opened his eyes again, he was then inside the mansion at the bottom of the tarn, his mother was beaming with joy as much as the jewel was radiating light and happiness. He gave news from the wee lassie who had turned into a pretty and happy woman, and since this moment, joy and happiness never left the sweet mansion of the tarn. 02/08/11 Isabelle Coquinot